Died: 23rd February 1917
Age: 25
Clyde Alfred Samson, only child of AH Samson, of Raglan House, Rouge Bouillon, Jersey, was born 28th November, 1891. He entered [Victoria College] in 1903 and remained till Midsummer 1908. He was in the Shooting VIII in his last two years, winning the bronze medal awarded to the runners-up for the Cadet Pair Trophy at Bisley in 1908, and gaining considerable success in various competitions in both years. He was a useful performer with the gloves and put up a great fight in the Final of the Middle Weights at school against a much heavier man.
On leaving school he joined the staff of the London City and Midland Bank in London, where his chief recreation was swimming. He did many good performances at the Holborn and Hornsey Baths and held the Proficiency Medal of the Royal Life Saving Society.
At the beginning of the War he joined The Artists Rifles and was one of the first batch of that corps sent to France, in September 1914. He remained at the front nearly two years, and then, having contracted rheumatic fever, was sent to hospital in England. He came to Jersey on sick leave in 1916, and married shortly before returning to duty with his regiment in England. Physically unfit for further active service he was working as an Instructor when he was again attacked by the same malady and died on 23rd February, 1917.
Clyde Samson was keen in everything he undertook and thorough in his work as he was in his play. Unassuming, genial, and straightforward, he made friends wherever he went, and never an enemy.
The above text appeared in the Victoria College Book of Remembrance published in 1920.
The link to the Channel Islands Great War Study Group website is:
http://www.greatwarci.net/honour/jersey/database/samson-ca-hornchurch.htm
